The Year Hockey Made Moves That Will Suit It Best

Hockey progressives will remember 1992 as the year the NHL finally hit the 20th century.

Bigtime problems, bigtime solutions and bold new plans were laid by a sport that everyone clearly recognizes as No. 4 among the four major professional sports leagues.

The cynics and traditionalists, however, will recall 1992 as NHL owners and athletes often acting like the shy kid -- left as a wallflower at the big dance for too long -- grabbing at everything shiny and new in a desperate attempt to be accepted. The NHL did everything but put Jaromir Jagr and Alexander Mogilny in a rap video to get the public to pay attention.

It doesn't take a genius to identify the major players of 1992 as the men in suits in board rooms and not the men in uniforms banging other skaters into the boards.

NHL owners dumped The Ultimate Suit, John Ziegler, as league president.

NHL owners dumped blustery Chicago owner Bill Wirtz as the chairman of the board of governors.

NHL owners named Gil Stein interim president, shuddered as he embarked on a 24-city summer political campaign to keep the job, then angled Stein out of the top spot. Stein, however, must be praised for his ambitious ideas.

The NHL talked bravely about eliminating fighting -- then took a good half step by installing a game misconduct for instigating fights. The result was that fighting was reduced by -- you guessed it -- about one half.

The NHL came to the grim realization -- about three years after everyone else -- that SportsChannel America wasn't the answer to its problems. And it turned to ESPN for far more exposure, but only for about $16 million a year. The owners came to the correct conclusion that America must see hockey en masse before big bucks can be garnered.

Stein went on a crusade for the Dream Team concept in the Olympics, but the troublesome logistics of closing down the NHL in February 1994 left the sport arguing and debating that dream into

the first month of 1993.

NHL owners hired Gary Bettman, 40, NBA senior vice president and godfather of the salary cap, as their first commissioner. The good news is that this guy is extremely bright, decisive, a deal maker and a consensus builder. There isn't any bad news yet. But we still must see if NHL owners are really ready to allow Bettman to run the show. If they aren't, bickering will be the password for 1993 as revenue sharing becomes a cause celebre to help bail out the poor sisters of hockey. The cynic's view: In a copycat move, of course, an NBA guy got the job. The NBA is the toast of the town. But even a cynic wouldn't condemn the NHL for going outside the game. The NHL has 100 men who know everything there is to know about hockey. They were dreadfully short on somebody who knows something about running bigtime sports.

After a long democratic process produced Ottawa and Tampa Bay -- both fraught with financial questions -- as expansion teams in 1990, owners took the shortcut and rammed Orange County, Calif., and South Florida into the league almost overnight. The move was stunning in its swiftness. The ticket-paying public simply isn't used to a sport that moved about as often as an arctic glacier striking a backroom deal and quickly pushing on. The reason for the swiftness, however, was simple. Blockbuster Video, which owns South Florida, is big. Disney, which owns Orange County, is The Wonderful World Of Color (Primarily Green).

The owners couldn't resist the $50 million entry fee and huge financial resources both would bring. They'll even bow and let Disney call the team the Mighty Ducks if it wants. Yucks! Big Bucks! The Event of the Year undoubtedly was the 10-day NHL players strike. It stopped the sport cold. It sent shockwaves through 24 NHL franchises. It was the D-Day when the players -- for years underpaid and held subservient by the owner-warlords -- stood up and fought.

Other than cooling off the Rangers and costing them the Stanley Cup, did the strike bring monumental change in the structure of management-labor? No, not in itself. There was nothing so earth-shattering in free agency changes or other key issues that could convince outsiders that a strike really was needed. In fact, the players almost instantly began to bend on some issues. And why not. The owners began in 1990 to give in and finally start paying the players what they deserve.

But a strike was shiny and new. And the players who never had struck before -- because the NHL and former NHLPA executive director Alan Eagleson were in league with one another -- needed to exert their muscle. It was: "I am player, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore." But the strike was the vehicle that set everything else in motion. It was the great agent for change.

With Bettman and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow in place, the 1993 collective bargaining agreement will show us if 1992 was the great seed that planted the future of the game and set owner and player as partner or enemy.